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Humor - Essay Review |
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Columnist Celia Rivenbark compiles her observations about
southern and popular culture in Bless Your Heart, Tramp.
Her wit will have you holding your sides as she recounts
southerners in rare snow storms, womanless wedding events, and beer can
attire. Dividing the essays into three sections – “At Home, The
South, and Everywhere Else,” Rivenbark covers a wide range of social
topics that display our changing times with a touch of southern charm and
down to earth logic. The home section deals with the trials and tribulations of
becoming a mother at forty. Readers
will see themselves as Rivenbark will do anything for the right Happy
Meal, worry over the high school reunion and give the modern day version
of 1950’s Home Economics marriage tips. Though the southern viewpoint comes clearly across
throughout the collection, in the section focusing on the South, Rivenbark
looks at the cultural aspects that make this region stand out.
The art of softening the hard truth with a simple “bless your
heart” tagged to the end. Society
page editors fear of bridal moms and the importance of not seeing the
bridal gown before the wedding, especially in the newspaper announcement.
Southern cooking from lard to grits is covered, but can you follow
the measurements? The third section covers everything left in popular culture
and politics. Who hasn’t
been sick and become best of friends with Home Shopping hosts?
If they let John Hinckley out for the weekend, who would he visit?
Then there is the news story of a train accident victim who called
her mother before 911. Celia Rivenbark’s columns have been syndicated by the New
York Times News Service and the Knight-Ridder-Tribune News Service.
Her column “From the Belle Tower” appears Thursdays in the
Myrtle Beach Sun News.
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